For the past 3 weeks I've been trying to make a decision about the venue where Joe and I will hold our wedding reception. I've gone back and forth, back and forth. It's been the hardest decision I've made since I picked which college to attend. For the record, I couldn't pick until a month before school started. I had three schools, three deposits, and three roommates contacting me!
Eerily, I had 3 reception venues between which I was trying to choose.
I finally made the decision yesterday. I felt like I was going to puke after I made it, but I did it. I just hope it works out.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
History in the making
My grandparents, who yesterday went to the polls and voted for
Barack Obama, grew up in a time and place that was so different from now. It's kind of amazing to look at my grandparents.
My grandfather was raised by an incredibly racist man. My great-
grandfather used to make people turn off the tv if a black person
came on the screen.
My grandmother is related to Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of
the Ku Klux Klan.
My grandparents both grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. They were
there during the Civil Rights Movement, they witnessed the
demonstrations.
My mother saw with her own eyes black people sprayed with fire hoses.
As a toddler my mother had a black nanny (Flora) who when she would
take my mom out for the day would have to somehow arrange to grab
the last seat of the "white section" for my mother and her brother
to sit on, and the first seat of the "black section" so that Flora
could sit with her hands on the kids' shoulders and pray that no one harassed her because she was so scared of something happening to the kids "because of her."
My grandparents took Flora to Florida one year and they had to get
their lunch to go so that they all could sit outside by the car with Flora to eat since all the restaurants were "whites only."
My mother grew up in segregated schools and it wasn't until her
senior of high school that her high school in Atlanta was
desegregated and ONE black boy came to her high school. One.
My 84 year old grandfather, son of a notorious racist, and my 80
year old grandmother, relative of the founder of Ku Klux Klan, both
born and raised in the deep Confederate South, voted for the first
black President of the United States of America and they did it with joy!
Barack Obama, grew up in a time and place that was so different from now. It's kind of amazing to look at my grandparents.
My grandfather was raised by an incredibly racist man. My great-
grandfather used to make people turn off the tv if a black person
came on the screen.
My grandmother is related to Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of
the Ku Klux Klan.
My grandparents both grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. They were
there during the Civil Rights Movement, they witnessed the
demonstrations.
My mother saw with her own eyes black people sprayed with fire hoses.
As a toddler my mother had a black nanny (Flora) who when she would
take my mom out for the day would have to somehow arrange to grab
the last seat of the "white section" for my mother and her brother
to sit on, and the first seat of the "black section" so that Flora
could sit with her hands on the kids' shoulders and pray that no one harassed her because she was so scared of something happening to the kids "because of her."
My grandparents took Flora to Florida one year and they had to get
their lunch to go so that they all could sit outside by the car with Flora to eat since all the restaurants were "whites only."
My mother grew up in segregated schools and it wasn't until her
senior of high school that her high school in Atlanta was
desegregated and ONE black boy came to her high school. One.
My 84 year old grandfather, son of a notorious racist, and my 80
year old grandmother, relative of the founder of Ku Klux Klan, both
born and raised in the deep Confederate South, voted for the first
black President of the United States of America and they did it with joy!
IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!
2 hours. The time I waited in line yesterday to enthusiastically vote for Barack Obama.
16 months. The time I have spent supporting Obama and believing in hope and change.
More than 16 years. The time that has passed since I walked the halls of my high school everyday with the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have A Dream" speach on my folder for everyone to see; from the moment I ordered my class graduation ring with MLK on one side and world peace on the other; that I have felt inspired by and influenced by the Civil Rights Movement; that I have prayed that one day the United States of America would vote a minority into the presidency.
At this moment in time. I have never been more proud of my country.
16 months. The time I have spent supporting Obama and believing in hope and change.
More than 16 years. The time that has passed since I walked the halls of my high school everyday with the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have A Dream" speach on my folder for everyone to see; from the moment I ordered my class graduation ring with MLK on one side and world peace on the other; that I have felt inspired by and influenced by the Civil Rights Movement; that I have prayed that one day the United States of America would vote a minority into the presidency.
At this moment in time. I have never been more proud of my country.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
vote!
Today I waited in line for 2 hours to do something I've been waiting to do for 16 months. I really can't complain.
I'm insanely passionate about my political beliefs. Each election year, it's a challenge for me to get along with co-workers, friends, and a few loved ones who side on the opposite side of me. Joe and I have to basically never speak about any of it. We can talk politics when things aren't so heated, but not for at least the few months leading up to an election. I have to pretend that I don't know that I have friends who are actually voting Republican, an idea that actually makes me feel sick to my stomach.
This year has been extra challenging as we face the opportunity for us to elect the first (1/2) African-American as President. It is truly something I've been praying for - for at least 18 years of my life. Wow! That makes me feel really old to say that.
I've never been more excited and cared so intimately and personally about an election in my life. It truly is an amazing moment in history.
I'm insanely passionate about my political beliefs. Each election year, it's a challenge for me to get along with co-workers, friends, and a few loved ones who side on the opposite side of me. Joe and I have to basically never speak about any of it. We can talk politics when things aren't so heated, but not for at least the few months leading up to an election. I have to pretend that I don't know that I have friends who are actually voting Republican, an idea that actually makes me feel sick to my stomach.
This year has been extra challenging as we face the opportunity for us to elect the first (1/2) African-American as President. It is truly something I've been praying for - for at least 18 years of my life. Wow! That makes me feel really old to say that.
I've never been more excited and cared so intimately and personally about an election in my life. It truly is an amazing moment in history.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Anticipation
I finally ordered my tokidoki concerto punk amica! Yay!
I cannot wait to get it!
Isn't it so cute?
I really love this print. It may be my favorite tokidoki print ever. I have been anticipating the October release of the concerto punk print for over 4 months.
I got a carnival carreza:
and a mezzanotte bacio:
back in August to hold me over, but it's been a long wait.
My concerto punk amica is my 10th tokidoki bag (or 12th if you count my spiaggia portatelefono and caramella).
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I cannot wait to get it!
Isn't it so cute?
I really love this print. It may be my favorite tokidoki print ever. I have been anticipating the October release of the concerto punk print for over 4 months.
I got a carnival carreza:
and a mezzanotte bacio:
back in August to hold me over, but it's been a long wait.
My concerto punk amica is my 10th tokidoki bag (or 12th if you count my spiaggia portatelefono and caramella).
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wrong Woman, Wrong Message
This is courtesy of my BFF Suzy. Her comments are the ones at the bottom (in italics) - to all of which I completely agree and feel the same. I'm very concerned.
______________________________________
Wrong Woman, Wrong Message
By Gloria Steinem
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.
But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."
This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.
Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.
So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.
Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.
So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.
Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.
Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.
And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.
This could be huge.
Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.
______________________________________
I found this article at
Women Against Sarah Palin
which is an amazing blog giving thousands of women a venue to express their concerns.
I must say, out loud, that I'm scared to death that the Republican ticket will win in November, MOSTLY because of Sarah Palin.
American Idol has me spoiled. I don't like having only one vote! But my vote is going in early and is going to count this time (I don't feel it did 4 years ago).
______________________________________
Wrong Woman, Wrong Message
By Gloria Steinem
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.
But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."
This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.
Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.
So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.
Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.
So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.
Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.
Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.
And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.
This could be huge.
Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.
______________________________________
I found this article at
Women Against Sarah Palin
which is an amazing blog giving thousands of women a venue to express their concerns.
I must say, out loud, that I'm scared to death that the Republican ticket will win in November, MOSTLY because of Sarah Palin.
American Idol has me spoiled. I don't like having only one vote! But my vote is going in early and is going to count this time (I don't feel it did 4 years ago).
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
I'm not in love with you anymore....let's just be friends
So my friend asked me tonight why my feelings for Clay have changed. Of course I had to write a freaking diatribe to answer her, but it was good hash it all out. So for prosperity....here's my breakup letter to Clay Aiken.
************************************************
It's been a long process and I've been fighting these feelings for over 2 years now.
I never liked Clay Aiken because of his voice. I like his voice, but it's far down on the list of things that I like about him.
What first and foremost drew me to him was his looks. I was immediately attracted to him before he ever sang a note. Then I really liked his personality. Then I liked how he sounded when he sang. And I never really liked the music or songs he sang. I would have never listened to them if they had been sung by anyone else.
1. Looks: So Clay changing his looks is most significant thing because it took away my sexual attraction, my lecherousness if you will, for him. The hair and the general appearance (including the teeth capping) is my number one gripe. I've been waiting and hoping for 2 years that he would style (and color) his hair into some fashion that I found appealing, but so far it hasn't happened.
When there's no sexual attraction, there's no interest in staring at pictures of him. There's no interest in talking incessantly and fantasizing about his body and what he is or isn't doing with it. There's no giddiness over my "cute celebrity boyfriend."
The joy that Clay brought me was through my attraction to him and feeling that rush of lust and the slap-happiness of what having a crush on someone feels like. That's what has kept me around for so long.
2. Personality: Of course the guy is going to change with what has happened in his life over the past 5 years, and I'm not faulting him for it nor intend for it to be a complaint, it's just a factor in how my attraction for him has changed.
For the past couple of years, especially after the Official Fan Club and the blogs came to be, I've started feeling extremely taken advantage of. For a long time I felt like the only time Clay blogged or interacted with his fans was to ask us to donate money or support some cause (worthy ones and not-so-worthy ones like that damn tv show).
But also I've come to feel that Clay or TPTB assume that we the fans are going to go apeshit over every single thing he says, does, or sells no matter the quality or quantity of what is being put before us. Therefore he doesn't feel the need to put forth more effort to keep his fans interested.
The Kelly Rippa incident did not go over well with me. I think Kelly Rippa is an evil idiot for the way she handled it and the things she implied in her comments, but the minute he did that to her, I was enraged with him. That was my gut reaction and I know that if anyone ever did that to me I would go fucking bonkers on them. That was strike two.
Also that interview that was done by the New York magazine (I can't remember who exactly did it), you know the one that apparently everyone was pissed at the author over? That was another big "oh no" moment for me. I didn't like the things Clay said or the way he handle himself. I just kind of shook my head at it. It was kind of the thing that solidified the end of my attraction to his personality.
3. Voice: I still think his voice is really special. There are times when I pop in the old stuff he did on Idol and the goosebumps come back. But I don't feel like his albums ever show off his voice. See part 4.
4. Music: I've reached my limit on the craptastic albums and boring/cheesy symphony and Christmas pageant tours that I have had to muster excitement over. The last album with all the cover songs was a real downer, but I have hung on waiting for this new album....hoping that he would pick some quality original music, not have it sound over-produced like MOAM and the other albums, and offer me something more than safe and boring adult contemporary, easy listening, grocery store aisle music. I intensely dislike Jaymes Foster and the hand she has held in Clay's career as well as senile old-man Clive Davis who thinks he's got a jackpot Barry Manilow, Jr. in the making. But in the end the only person that I can really hold blame to is Clay.
I'm trying to accept that this is just the way he is, this is the music he likes, and this is the song-styling he is going to sing. But it's hard to explain and make sense to people (and to myself) that I've never liked Clay Aiken's music, I just like him.
So finally hearing some songs of this new album and disliking them; seeing Clay in person (at Spamalot) and finding him completely unattractive; and not feeling any sort of connection with him on a personality level....the passionate love-affair is over.
Let's Be Friends: I will always care for him and I will remain interested in what he is doing. I will buy the album next Tuesday. And I will at least listen to the entire thing once. I'm sure I'll see him in concert each time he tours. Like I said, he and I have a history together. I don't hate him. I don't think he's talentless or worthless or anything like that.
And unlike some people I know who have "moved on" - I don't feel like anyone who continues to feel love for him or remain in the fandom is dumb or wasting their time or has no life.
If anything, I'm sad that I don't feel the same and can't fake my feelings to stay a part of it. It's like that famous saying, "It's not you, it's me."
And it sucks and is downright depressing.
************************************************
It's been a long process and I've been fighting these feelings for over 2 years now.
I never liked Clay Aiken because of his voice. I like his voice, but it's far down on the list of things that I like about him.
What first and foremost drew me to him was his looks. I was immediately attracted to him before he ever sang a note. Then I really liked his personality. Then I liked how he sounded when he sang. And I never really liked the music or songs he sang. I would have never listened to them if they had been sung by anyone else.
1. Looks: So Clay changing his looks is most significant thing because it took away my sexual attraction, my lecherousness if you will, for him. The hair and the general appearance (including the teeth capping) is my number one gripe. I've been waiting and hoping for 2 years that he would style (and color) his hair into some fashion that I found appealing, but so far it hasn't happened.
When there's no sexual attraction, there's no interest in staring at pictures of him. There's no interest in talking incessantly and fantasizing about his body and what he is or isn't doing with it. There's no giddiness over my "cute celebrity boyfriend."
The joy that Clay brought me was through my attraction to him and feeling that rush of lust and the slap-happiness of what having a crush on someone feels like. That's what has kept me around for so long.
2. Personality: Of course the guy is going to change with what has happened in his life over the past 5 years, and I'm not faulting him for it nor intend for it to be a complaint, it's just a factor in how my attraction for him has changed.
For the past couple of years, especially after the Official Fan Club and the blogs came to be, I've started feeling extremely taken advantage of. For a long time I felt like the only time Clay blogged or interacted with his fans was to ask us to donate money or support some cause (worthy ones and not-so-worthy ones like that damn tv show).
But also I've come to feel that Clay or TPTB assume that we the fans are going to go apeshit over every single thing he says, does, or sells no matter the quality or quantity of what is being put before us. Therefore he doesn't feel the need to put forth more effort to keep his fans interested.
The Kelly Rippa incident did not go over well with me. I think Kelly Rippa is an evil idiot for the way she handled it and the things she implied in her comments, but the minute he did that to her, I was enraged with him. That was my gut reaction and I know that if anyone ever did that to me I would go fucking bonkers on them. That was strike two.
Also that interview that was done by the New York magazine (I can't remember who exactly did it), you know the one that apparently everyone was pissed at the author over? That was another big "oh no" moment for me. I didn't like the things Clay said or the way he handle himself. I just kind of shook my head at it. It was kind of the thing that solidified the end of my attraction to his personality.
3. Voice: I still think his voice is really special. There are times when I pop in the old stuff he did on Idol and the goosebumps come back. But I don't feel like his albums ever show off his voice. See part 4.
4. Music: I've reached my limit on the craptastic albums and boring/cheesy symphony and Christmas pageant tours that I have had to muster excitement over. The last album with all the cover songs was a real downer, but I have hung on waiting for this new album....hoping that he would pick some quality original music, not have it sound over-produced like MOAM and the other albums, and offer me something more than safe and boring adult contemporary, easy listening, grocery store aisle music. I intensely dislike Jaymes Foster and the hand she has held in Clay's career as well as senile old-man Clive Davis who thinks he's got a jackpot Barry Manilow, Jr. in the making. But in the end the only person that I can really hold blame to is Clay.
I'm trying to accept that this is just the way he is, this is the music he likes, and this is the song-styling he is going to sing. But it's hard to explain and make sense to people (and to myself) that I've never liked Clay Aiken's music, I just like him.
So finally hearing some songs of this new album and disliking them; seeing Clay in person (at Spamalot) and finding him completely unattractive; and not feeling any sort of connection with him on a personality level....the passionate love-affair is over.
Let's Be Friends: I will always care for him and I will remain interested in what he is doing. I will buy the album next Tuesday. And I will at least listen to the entire thing once. I'm sure I'll see him in concert each time he tours. Like I said, he and I have a history together. I don't hate him. I don't think he's talentless or worthless or anything like that.
And unlike some people I know who have "moved on" - I don't feel like anyone who continues to feel love for him or remain in the fandom is dumb or wasting their time or has no life.
If anything, I'm sad that I don't feel the same and can't fake my feelings to stay a part of it. It's like that famous saying, "It's not you, it's me."
And it sucks and is downright depressing.
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